Suomi Sweetheart
by Yukiko the Child of Snow
Summary: They just want to be together, spinning and swaying to the sound of the fiddle in a dance of polka. Set in veeery late 19th century Savonia, Finland. Based on the Finnish old favorite Ievan Polkka. No leeks. Some Finnish potty mouths. Kaito x Miku, mentioned Luka x Gakupo
1. I

**A/N: 1. I don't own anything except for this fan fiction! And informations in here ARE NOT NECESSARILY HISTORICALLY/CULTURALLY CORRECT!**

**2. This fic isn't exactly about Vocaloid characters; the Vocaloids are actually actors who take the roles of characters in the story, _who are Finnish_. In other words, _all_ Vocaloid characters _are given Finnish names_ in this story _which are closest to their original names_. So don't come up to me and tell me "this isn't a Vocaloid fic, I don't see any Miku or Luka or Kaito in here...". Miku, Luka and Kaito are in this story, but here Miku is Meri, Luka is Lumi, Kaito is Kalle, etc. If you can't figure out who is who, there is a cast list at the end of each chapter to help you.**

Now enjoy!

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><p><em>Love and Freedom is something you have to fight for.<em>

_Their battle went on and on for years in exchange for a few hours of dancing, side-by-side._

_Savonia, Finland._

_At the end of the 19th century._

Meri smiled bitterly. She was dressed in the most expensive, finest clothes. She ate fantastic culinary. She lived in a luxurious mansion. She possessed the mind of a professional scientist. She was loved to no end by her dear mother and father. She lived a happy life.

Did she?

No. Endless thoughts swirled and overwhelmed her brain. Meri mentally scolded herself that she should be grateful and happy about all the bliss she had been granted. But her heart spoke the contrary.

It told her wrinkly brain to shut its mouth and quit telling such blatant lies. It screamed that it had better knowledge of the truth than that nerdy brain. It argued that there's no way in Heaven or Hell that Meri should ever feel thankful or happy about being treated like - or even less than - a four-year-old child despite being fourteen years older. She nearly never got to go out of her mansion; there were a few times when her father decided to take her with him on some of his business trip. Making friends was out of the question. It only took her one innocent joke or white lie escaping her lips to have one of her meals ruthlessly discarded. Her whole word was printed flat, onto book pages, that is.

Her name, Meri, means the sea. In one of her endless innocent fantasies, one day not far from then should she dissolve into soft, fluffy, white sea foam, floating about aimlessly and playing with waves, the heartbeat of the sea, before disintegrating. Disappearing into clear opal water. Vanishing into nothingness. If it was true, it would be fantastic, a poetic ending to her miserable life.

"Meri! Meri! Are you sleeping?"

A sudden quiet whisper pulled the aqua-haired girl away from her fairytale dream. She was not floating on crystal clear blue waves. She was not dissolving into the water. Instead, she was sitting back against the wall, clothed arms wrapping firmly around her knees, inside an abandoned study of her mansion (which she sometimes called "golden prison"), below a large and rather worn-out window which was opened enough to let the icy breath of a Nordic winter to stream into and fill the entire space.

"You're looking sooooo pale. Have your old fuddy-duddies cut your meals again?" - the person who had just waken Meri from her daydreaming, a pink-haired girl at the same age with Meri, swiftly swung the large window closed as she spoke to the other girl in Swedish.

"No way, Lumi. There's nothing wrong with me, you see!" - Meri retorted, also in Swedish.

Although she's not allowed to make friends, Meri still managed to find herself a best friend, named Lumi. They met each other for the first time when Lumi somehow got lost, happened to walk by Meri's family's mansion and found the latter sitting by the same window, gazing outside. Lumi was born in Sweden, as the result of a forever unfinished, full of sorrow love tale. After sixteen years living in misfortune and shame alongside her father in the middle of nowhere, she had finally got the chance to make a new start in her home country; since then, her father also found a job and her life steadily improved. The first talk between her and Meri became unnecessarily long and awkward because of that hell of a personal profile. Being freshly moved to her supposedly home country just a few months ago and right after she had just ended a ridiculously long period of time living - trapped - in a foreign one could only mean that she didn't speak Finnish all that well. However, the latter half of the conversation became much quicker and more natural after the pink-haired one of them discovered that the other could speak the language which the former had reluctantly taken as mother tongue throughout her childhood. And then Lumi decided she was "tired" standing outside the window and climbed through it (the pink dress she was wearing at the time teared slightly because of that) to enter the abandoned study. The two girls then played, chatted and read books together for what seemed to be hours before Lumi realized the time her father come home from work was near. Hop she went through the window and hop she went unseen within the blink of an eye. The next day, the same hour, the same minute, pop she appeared in the room and they again had all the fun they had the day before. They had become best friends.

Lumi was pretty. Gorgeous. Beautiful. Taller than Meri by the mere height of her own head. Long, silky, rosy hair, lingered with the scent of wild flowers. The mysterious shade of aqua accompanied by an unbelievable softness of Meri's pigtails was, still, absolutely no match. She was wearing a plain dark blue dress that day, but somehow her attractiveness left adorable Meri's, who was in a plaid blue-gray attire and sitting inches away from her, as far as miles behind. Lumi was strong. Far stronger than Meri. She dared to break the rules of her strict father just for a few minutes with the other girl. Meri never dreamed of breaking the rules of her oppressive and overprotective parents for the sake of her whole life. Lumi was everything that Meri wasn't, Lumi surpassed her at every single thing. Meri knew it, and so she appreciated and loved Lumi even more.

"There _must_ be something wrong with you, I know it. You would often jump all over the place whenever I came!" - said Lumi, reassuringly, as she scanned her friend from head to toe, as if examining an object that had fallen from the sky.

"Who said I jump? And, Lumi, you know, I'm kind of not in the mood to play or chitchat now. I..."

"For the sake of Vikings, are you sick?" - blue eyes widening, the taller girl seemed seriously worried and even terrified. She rested one of her slender, smooth hands on the other's formidably wide forehead (luckily it had always been covered up by her long turquoise bangs) - "See? So freaking hot! This is bad..."

"Stop it!" - grunting, Meri forcefully threw the other's hand away from her forehead - "That's because your hands are freezing cold! Exactly what's in your head?!" - her voice began to lower a notch - "You know, Lumi... I'm just thinking that... We're friends. I think that it's time we have a serious talk."

Lumi's slim eyebrows furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"Listen. Do you know what freedom and love is?"

A long silence.

Perhaps Meri had the brain of any _Meri-t_ scholar, but it was rather unbelievable that one day she would bring up such a question.

However, judging by the look on her face, it absolutely didn't seem like she was joking.

Lumi gazed at the dust and moss-covered ceiling, which had a quite large and noticeable hole at a corner. She stared at it just when a rat appeared. It stared back at her with its cunning little red eyes before disappearing from view.

"Let me ask you something. A rat never gets locked indoors, it can eat whatever that's in front of it, never has any worries about money, honor, yadda yadda yadda. So, is a rat free after all?"

"There are times when I wish I were a rat, Lumi..."

"... Nope. The rat is _not_ free _at all_. It's always in fear. Always hiding. Everything that's ever in its head is 'stuffing my bone-dry stomach with food, not being eaten, warm in winter and cool in summer'. That's it. No imaginations. No deep thoughts. No dreams. No goals! It doesn't know what the _hell_ freedom is! It's forever trapped in its natural instinct, only gnawing everything in sight and run upon seeing the shadows of cats or human. You get it?"

"... Mmm." - Meri made a faint hum, glueing her eyes to the dusty wooden floor - "Then what do you think love is?"

"Let me tell you a story. True story. My old neighbors in Sweden called me a bastard, the result of love without a future. But, up until now, neither my dad nor me would ever, _ever_ believe that the things happened between my dad and that woman were _love_. She took advantage of my dad, and then when things went all crazy, she blamed him and went around spitting "I'll never lay half a strand of hair on that Finnish dick even if you point a gun at my forehead!". And since she liked to be a _complete_ slut, she threw _this_, HER, drop of blood at my dad as if nothing happened and then ran her ass off with another man. And now my dad would never, _ever_, admit that he _loved_ her. There's no way in Hell had he ever LOVED her! If you really _love_ someone, you would be with that person through everything, help and sympathize with that person and _especially_ take responsibility for anything you did to the other person. You get it?"

"I... I get it..." - sighed Meri - "there are times when I wanted to turn into sea foam to end my life peacefully, but now I think I know what I've always wanted." - her aqua eyes brightened with hope - "I want to travel east and west! I want to say whatever I want without being hit or have my meals cut! I want to be through every ups and downs with a person who is willing to sacrifice for me!"

Had Meri's ringing sweet voice made its way to the other's ears, Lumi's soft gaze slowly faded into a surprised look and finally an intense stare, full of anger. She spoke in a louder, more furious voice than before:

_"You are the most cowardly person I've ever met."_

**(end of part 1)**

**CAST** (in appearance order)

_Hatsune Miku_ as **Meri**

_Megurine Luka_ as** Lumi**

**A/N:**

**Behind the Scenes:**

**1. I picked the name "Meri" to give Miku because in all the Finnish names that start with M I found at BehindtheNames dot Com, I only thought that "Mikaela" and "Meri" were the best suited. However, since Miku is already named "Michaela" in the Story of Evil series by MothyP, Meri was certainly the best choice. "Meri" means "sea" in Finnish, so it's also a reference to the song "Deep Sea Girl".**

**2. And I picked "Lumi" for Luka because it's the closest to her original name, and it also means "snow" in Finnish.**


	2. II

**A/N: As I said in the previous chapter, this story is fictional and therefore not ****necessarily correct. Don't come to me and tell me that "Finnish people don't do this, Finnish people don't say that...". THERE ARE ALL KINDS OF PEOPLE EVERYWHERE, and if I let the characters act like ordinary, _normal _Finns, _the story can't start in the first__ place._**

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><p>That tiny flash of hope in Meri's sea blue eyes disappeared like a flickering candle's fire before the wind. All that was left in those two orbs were surprise and shock. She couldn't believe her ears anymore.<p>

"Wh... What do you mean?" - shocked and angered, she began blabbering in Finnish - "err, _I mean _why are you saying such a thing all of a sudden?" - having regained her composure and control over her mouth, she continued in Swedish - "you've never been so mad at me, neither have you _ever _called me a coward. _I just said _I want to be free and I want to truly love!"

"So Your Highness think things will get magically done if you just _say _it? So you _dare _to think that by simply quacking "I wanna be free" and "I wanna love", a pretty fairy with sparkling rainbow wings will bring you freedom and love on a silver platter, _don't you_? Are you just going to sit here and dream nonsense and not going to _do something about it_, fight for it, _princess_?!"

"I..."

"I've had to fight since I was a little baby. _Sixteen years straight _trying to keep my head high while living among a bunch of _horrible _ass neighbors. Breaking a few rules of my strict as hell dad to sneak out and then get lost and, _meet you_. AND argue with my dad for weeks until he lets me love Gabriel."

This made a violent shiver run down Meri's spine and strike every of her nerves. _Gabriel_... Could he be the "eggplant head" man who worked as an apprentice at Lumi's father's workshop? The person who had been mentioned as much as a thousand times in the girls' pointless talks? The man whom Lumi knew her dear father didn't put up with at all?

Meri's mouth opened and closed as if imitating a fish. The fury on Lumi's face vanished, giving space for a frighteningly razor sharp glare and an even sharper smirk. Nudging closer to the aqua-haired girl, she whispered in her ear:

"Meri... Listen, I have a plan. At midnight, when my dad's gone to sleep, I'll be here again. We'll climb through this window and escape from this goddamn _golden hell_ for good! Don't forget to wear a hooded cape, 'cuz next morning we're going to enter the streets so there mustn't be anyone recognizing us. That's it. I gotta go now. I'll let you think about this, but..."

Pulling her head up slowly, she fixed her position so that her face was just inches away from Meri's. Cupping one of the other's cheeks, Lumi began whispering again with her calm and downright _sexy _voice "... I don't have any cowardly friends and a coward isn't _my _friend." in Finnish.

Lumi delivered on of her long, skinny legs through the window, and then the other; soon she found herself sitting on the window, the tips of her feet touching the snow-covered ground. Smiling cunningly, she looked over her shoulder and laughed rather innocently: "By the way, if you have any questions, then yeah, I can only say _that much_ in your goddamn language. God why must it be so hard?!"

"... As if _your _language is that easy..." - muttering in Swedish, the aqua-haired teenage girl buried her round face in her covered knees, hearing nothing but the sounds of shoes hitting the thick layer of snow, followed by the pink-haired girl's merry singing and skipping fading into the distance, leaving only the endless howling of the breath of a Nordic winter.

**(end of part 2)**

**CAST**

_? _as **Lumi's father **(which means he's an OC)

_Kamui Gakupo _as **Gabriel **(mentioned only)


	3. III

"Here's your coffee. No sugar, just like you've requested."

"Thanks Pauli. Now can you send this letter for me?"

"I'm going right away."

As soon as the young silver-haired male swiftly made his exit out of the wooden door, the other, older man (about twenty-five) set the item he had been working on - a beautiful silk dress - onto the oak wood table he was sitting at before taking a small sip at the hot, simmering velvet black liquid and resting his aching head against the hard surface before him.

His name was Kalle. He worked in a tailor shop in this quiet town... well actually he _owned _it. Seventeen, bam, his father went to Heaven at his own will, which resulted in his son, being a rather talented tailor himself, magically got to inherit his father's tailor shop. He started work earlier than most men his age. Earned enough money to put food on the table and clothes into the closet. Managed to find himself an apprentice, Pauli, a few years later. He wasn't kind and sweet enough to make ladies fall at his feet but enough to maintain a pleasurable relationship with all of his neighbors.

But again, that kind of life was _too _boring.

"Kaaaaaaaalle! Long time no see! Aren't ya happy to see me?"

"Damn it, Lennart..." - the aquamarine-haired man let out a long, throaty whine - "How many times do I have to tell you to _keep quiet_?!"

The person who had just made a rather... _energizing _entrance into the tailor shop and effectively set the tailor's mood to a super-duper-annoyed mode was no one other than Lennart, his younger cousin. Despite looking rather cute and innocent, the blonde male was well known for being stubborn, noisy, always full of himself and rather _crazy_. He'd got no jobs; all he did was going on endless spontaneous trips all over the place just to have fun all for himself and infesting Lydia's - his younger sister's - dwarfish amount of money she could ever earn each month, not enough for even herself and her family. Some said he _did _have a job, and all of his journeys were _business trips_. Anyway, he was downright _infuriating_ according to Kalle, and there were times he wished his cousin had never existed, even though many advices that helped him through funny situations in his childhood were from Lennart.

"No no no, _you _the one who's gotta speak a lil' bit louder! Look at you, soggy and grouchy like an old dog! So, how's the goin'?"

"Fine... So is Pauli... 's gonna get married..." - the lad replied monotonously; meanwhile his cousin's sky blue eyes had already widened so much that it could have fallen out of his eyeholes and bounced all over the place any minute.

"For the sake of Vikings, a boring ass like _you_ are gonna get _married_? You..." - a mess of surprise blurted its way out of the blonde's mouth - dripping with sarcasm, as usual.

"I mean Pauli. _Pauli _is gonna get married. She's tall. Blonde. Pretty." - Kalle was annoyed out of his mind, his sentence grew shorter and their sounds get heavier each minute.

"Oh, is that soooo?" - Lennart's eyes stayed widened for a long while - "That little white-haired stupid _gay_ kid is gonna get himself a wife then? Life is so unfair, ain't it?!"

"Alright Lennart, what do you want?" - crossing his arms, Kalle began gluing his ultramarine eyes to the cute little cup of coffee resting on his table. Looks like the tailor was going to fling the piping-hot drink at his dear cousin.

"Heh. Nothing. Just wanna tell my _boring _cousin that he should do something... y'know... _fun_. Just wanna let ya know, there's gonna be a party over at Leo's place next Monday. Dancin' and girls! Y' gotta be there for sure! Be there or be crap! Well, I gotta go now. I'm coming back to sleep over tonight!"

There was no response from the older man except for a long sigh. Seconds later, the blonde had already disappeared behind the shop's wooden door.

Kalle just sat there as if his feet were buried in the floor, his coffee had cooled long ago. Sighing again, he entangled his slender, slightly calloused fingers into his fluffy blue hair. Every time Lennart paid a visit, he had to suffer his way through a bunch of nonsense gibberish crap giddle-gaddle-gool blah blah blah about "my boring ass cousin" or "OMGOMGOMG why does that stupid guy get to have a wife?", which, every time Lennart was two meters away from Kalle, had to be used to their fullest to torture Kalle's innocent ears. Well the blonde said he was going to come back to sleep but in fact, he had to annoy the hell out of the older man for as much as a few _hours _before actually going to bed. It was not the first time Lennart stayed at his house overnight, but it was rather hard to find out why that day Kalle felt so... so... upset. Angered. _Annoyed_. That's it. Enough. No more. Well, looks like you have to find yourself a pavement not covered with snow to doze off for the night, Lennart. The young tailor pushed the door open, not forgetting to attach to the polished wood surface a piece of paper that read: "_You can go home early today, Pauli -KALLE_", slammed the door closed in a rather rude manner, locked it and followed the road that lead further into the city

**(end of part 3)**

**CAST:**

_Utatane Piko _as **Pauli**

_Kaito _as **Kalle**

_Kagamine Len _as **Lennart**

_Kagamine Rin _as **Lydia**

_Leon _as **Leo**

**A/N:**

**Behind the Scenes:**

**I chose to give Rin the name "Lydia" because I couldn't find a good Finnish female name that starts with R, besides when you read L or R in Japanese, they sound the same anyway.**


	4. IV

Midnight.

In the abandoned study.

The aqua-haired girl had donned a dark blue attire, not forgetting to cover her shoulders and the back of her head with a dark violet hooded cape, the thick and slightly fuzzy material reaching her knees. She was standing there in front of the wide opened worn-out window, her small body shaking violently in response to every gust of icy, almost deadly cold wind, carrying with it a faint, hazy shade of white and a few snowflakes here and there, attacking the girl's porcelain face, sending waves after waves of shivers down her spine. Though her heart desired to go back and give up, she stood there as if frozen, one hand gripping the side of the window firmly, one feet was already centimeters out of the room, hovering over the snow-covered ground.

Lumi was nowhere to be seen.

"That was sure some big talk you had there..." - smirking, Meri uttered quietly in Swedish, every word heavy with sarcasm and a hint of accent. Though she said it, she still somewhat... worried, doubted, _feared _the idea. Was escaping on her own really good for her after all? What if the world out there was somewhere she didn't belong? Would she be able to survive in this vast Suomi without Lumi?

"_Perkele_! You are the most cowardly person I've ever met! Well fine, Ruotsalainen, I don't need you any more! You can consider Meri not existing in your goddamn life any longer! I'll seek my own freedom, _by myself_!" - she continued her angry mutters, this time in perfect Finnish.

_Wait. You are too weak and too fragile to be out there on your own. Without Lumi, you are nothing. By the way, it's too cold out there. We're in Scandinavia, not India. You know you want to be here and be safe, right?_

What are you saying?! There's nothing more precious than freedom. I know Meri would rather die under falling snow than live in a marble box!

Meri was unaware that she was already standing on both her feet on the window; she was too busy with the voices swirling in her head to mind.

_Really? We are one coward, I'm_ _sure you know it!_

SHUT UP!

"Hey Miss, why are you standing on the wi-"

**"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"**

Meri landed flat on her stomach. She neither felt the snow on her skin, nor there was any single bit of snow on her clothes as a result of the fall. But winter hadn't ended yet.

The ground which she fell on was strangely warm and... bumpy... Seconds later, Meri heard little groans and something moving beneath her. Panicking, she quickly propped herself up in a sitting position, staring at the slightly frightening sight before her.

"Very funny, I see. If you think you can scare me with that stupid trick of yours then you've clearly made a huge mistake. I understand if you want to kill yourself, but jumping from a ground floor window isn't a very nice idea." - grunted the blue-haired male as he sat up and forcefully wiped the snow off of his once neat clothes.

**(end of part 4)**

**Perkele: If you don't know what this means already, it's a Finnish swear word. Ooh, Miku has a potty mouth...**

**Behind the Scenes:**

**So yeah, I've** **decided on a whim that Lumi's full name is Lumi Ruotsalainen. Her last name means "Swedish" in Finnish XD**


	5. V

Never.

Ever.

In her life. Had Meri been stared directly at. Or scolded. By a guy. With such dreamy deep ocean blue eyes along with matching fluffy blue hair, adding to his mysterious, almost incomprehensible attractiveness. And that warm voice too, even though it was heavy and sharp with anger.

"H... Hello? Are you okay, Miss? I... I didn't mean anything, it's just... it's just I'm in a kind of bad mood today..." - he began blubbering, but Meri remained hypnotized.

He desperately hoped that the strangely beautiful girl in front of him didn't have any mental disorders. He'd had enough of nuts.

She just sat there on the snowy ground literally frozen, taking away nearly all of his patience. When the idea of standing up and walking away was just sparking in his mind, his eardrums was instantly shot by a loud, high, and razor-sharp "LEAVE ME ALOOOOOOOOOOOOONE!" coming from the aqua-haired before the said female suddenly sprinted away even faster than a shooting arrow.

_She must be crazy_, he thought. But, there seemed to be something lingering in his very heart, making him unable to place even one footstep away from the spot. His feet was chained to the ground. They were then quickly freed, not to turn around and leave like a clever and neutral businessman, but to shoot after the girl at top speed with all their might.

It was very unexpected of the figure dressed in a dark blue dress and purple cape to suddenly brake to a halt, just when the blue-haired man was close. He put every bit of power he had into his feet to make them stop; they did, his speed didn't. Meri's frightened face charged closer to him one millisecond after another. He closed his eyes and let his fate decide...

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><p>His body hurt all over. Lifting his eyelids carefully, securely, he found himself flat on his stomach on the ground again. But not really, for he felt something soft beneath him, and he didn't think it was snow.<p>

Bam. The world around him had suddenly gone black, he saw nothing but tiny stars dancing all over the place. He felt his left cheek furiously heated. It was until his vision went back working normally and the first thing he caught a sight of was Meri's sea-green eyes filled with murder intent did he realize he was slapped particularly hard.

Panicking and embarrassed, he propped himself up on his feet in a flash and faced the turquoise-haired girl with his back. He didn't dare to look at Meri face-to-face, but his bat-like sense of hearing made him able to pick up every single of her muttered words between sounds of cracking snowflakes.

"_Per_... _ke_... _le_..."

The man's heart nearly shot out of his chest when the aforementioned poisoned word was repeated at a deafening volume and fatally high pitch, stinging in his brain afterwards. He wasn't surprised or furious, but worried. _Seriously _worried. _How can a terribly mentally disordered person like this be free to walk around the town?_

"Miss, are you okay?"

It was the least offensive sentence he could come up with.

"You are the one whom I should ask that question!"

It seemed that talking to her was a far more difficult task than he thought.

"Listen, you're crazy. Mad. Nuts. I understand if you want to play with snow, but isn't it time for you to go to bed?"

_How polite is that_, he thought.

"Well, looks like you don't understand Finnish, I suppose."

This could have been more than extremely serious case of mental diseases to be found in Finland, since only such Finns would switch to Swedish out of the blue (I didn't mean ones from Åland, mind you).

"The more you talk, the less I understand. I don't care what region you're from, but if you speak the language I speak, then please answer me. Do you need me to take you to the nearest sanatorium?"

"_You _are the only one who's crazy here! It took me forever to escape from that _hell _I'd been living in, and now I have to be here messing with some... some _man _trying to rape me and telling me to go to an asylum!"

Her shoulders trembled as she spoke. She cried.

The blue-haired man opened his mouth but no words formed. He felt himself shrinking at an alarming speed. A weird feeling overtook his heart, and it felt something like... like _guilt_. He manage to did something that even himself couldn't imagine.

Approaching Meri, he placed one of his calloused hands, thanks to his usual hard work of tailoring, on her shaking shoulder.

"Wh... What are you trying to do?!"

"I'm not doing anything. I just think that I don't have the privilege to call myself a man if I don't comfort a crying girl in front of me. If you don't mind, would you tell me what's making you feel this bad?"

Meri had already assumed that this guy was a complete bastard by default, so she didn't want to tell him even one tiny bit of the truth - she was stubborn as expected from a Finn. But when those deep sapphire eyes stared at hers so tenderly and almost saw straight into her heart, she couldn't help it.

"My parents love me and don't want me to be in danger. They protect me so well to the point of being _overprotective_. Except for the times when I get to tag along with my father on a few of his business trips, I spend all day looking through elaborate windows and burying myself in books in the mansion library. I'm not allowed to make friend; every single time I bring up the subject to my parents, they began chanting over and over: 'Young lady, you're born in a wealthy family, how can you get close to those filthy rats out there...' Even the best friend I finally managed to make has also disappeared!"

The man couldn't say anything. He wasn't even aware that Meri had buried her face into his chest, wetting his shirt with her tears, her delicate body bouncing with a hiccup every now and then.

He realized that, maybe, his boring life wasn't that bad.

**(end of part 5)**

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><p><strong>CAST: No new characters appearing this time! ^^<strong>


	6. VI

"You know..." - said the blue-head - "I see you want to run away, but you're only going to freeze to death if you leave at this hour. Why won't you... well... go home and go to sleep first, and do whatever you want tomorrow morning? Say, your house is this way, isn't it?"

"..." - saying nothing, Meri pushed the strong male body away from her with trembling hands. Putting the thick woolen hood back in its place over her head and covering more than half her face, she managed to put her violently shaking and pulsing body into a standing position and trotted away, leaving nothing but small, crisp, frosty noises of cracking snow beneath her little feet.

"Wait!..."

Now what?

"You forgot a shoe!" - with the said pretty, small, shiny, perfectly polished black shoe in hand, he approached Meri before she had the chance to disappear. It was when she suddenly came back to her senses and realized that one of her feet had literally frozen rock-hard.

"Ki... Kiitos..." - turning to a tomato-like shade, she reached one of her shivering hands out to the black object the other was holding. Her fingertips came into contact with his hand; a strange warmth began to quickly overtake her entire body.

"I wonder..." - the blue-haired man started - "if you can tell me your n..."

"What is it?" - Meri, having already placed one foot securely on the worn-out window and hovering two inches above the ground, replied.

"Do you mind if I ask you for your name?"

"Oh... that... I'm... Just call me Meri!" - she was beet red - it was lucky that the natural freezing air of a Scandinavian winter could be a legitimate excuse.

"Meri, which means the sea. I see you've got such a lovely name. But wait, are you sure you have a last name?"

"Believe me, if I tell you my last name, you'll die laughing. Can you tell me _your_ name?"

"Let's see..." - he pretended to think; he knew Meri was joking - "Of course I have a name... And it's a Finnish name, okay? My name is Kalle!"

"Sir, you're lying! That doesn't sound Finnish at all!" - the girl began laughing.

"Then where do you think I'm from? The end of the world?" - he hardly realized it, but he also started laughing.

"Of course not! But I think you've got a very beautiful name!"

"Oh... Thanks..." - the smile on Kalle's lips disappeared; he flushed lightly and scratched the back of his head - "so... Meri... We'll see each other again tomorrow, is it okay for you?"

"Yes..."

Before both of them could help themselves, their faces leaned forward at once and they shared a loving, sweet kiss. Meri felt the wonderful feeling of the other's albeit chapped lips brushing tenderly, carefully against hers. She let a small, soft whimper escape her throat.

"Well... See you again... Kalle."

**(end of part 6)**


	7. VII

"Rise and shine, my princess." - a soft voice, softer than the mattress she was resting on, sounded clearly in her ears along with a pair of lips pressing against her cheek gently in a sweet kiss - "100 years have passed and I'm here to break your curse!"

"Nnngggh... What the..." - the female groaned in discomfort as her sea green eyes got used to the light - "... _KALLE?_ Just what the hell are you doing in here? How did you..."

"Shh." - he silenced Meri playfully with his finger on her lips and chuckled - "Two words, _muisti_ and _uteliaisuus._ By the way, my oh Meri," - he removed his thin finger from the other's rosy lips. When the idea of sighing in relief was just starting to form in her mind, a hand grabbed her face firmly and squeezed her cheeks, causing a very face-distorted Meri to produce a long throaty grunt in annoyance - "you really are a rich learned lady, but, my, you curse too much." - he smirked and began drifting closer to her face, despite her hopeless effort of wiggling out of his grasp - "I guess I have to punish you for this..."

"Kalle..." - muttering between squeezed lips, she unknowingly let her eyes fall half-lidded - which pleased the blueberry-head even more - "I know what you're trying to do, but can you please let me get dressed first? Look at me, I'm still in my pajamas and my hair is horrible!"

"... Okay." - said Kalle as the female get up from her bed and dragged her body all the way to the wardrobe first thing - "But be quick, 'cause I have something for you."

* * *

><p>"Oh." - Meri, now dressed nicely and her hair pulled into two usual pigtails, let out a tiny gasp in surprise as the man, lovingly and delightfully, handed her something that looked like a small loaf of newly baked Finnish bread. A warm, inviting scent filled the large bedroom, making anyone forget it was the middle of winter, urging Meri's empty stomach.<p>

"Fresh, from Lena's Bakery!" - in his opinion, the small bakery owned by a woman named Lena near his place made the best pastries in the whole Finland, if not the entire Nordic region.

"Kiitos..." - replied the girl shyly - "but, to me at least, it's tasteless without coffee!"

"Aww come on, who needs coffee when Lena's bread is the best? Just eat up before it gets cold and hard; I have to tell you something!"

Without hesitation, Meri started digging in. Kalle was right; the bread was just too fantastic that any more flavors added would become unnecessary. However, her parents could have cut her fingers off if they'd ever seen her, a rich learned lady, eating like that. Finnish bread without coffee.

Halfway through her special breakfast, the tailor uttered something, this time with a noticeable struggle: "Err, Meri... I wonder... if you'd like to... you know... come to my place?"

"Pardon?" - she responded with her mouth full - this time she could've gotten her toes cut off.

"I wonder if you'd like to come to my place!" - repeated Kalle without the previous struggle, awaiting either a "yes" or a "no", though he hoped for "yes" more than "no".

"I'd love to." - excited, Meri threw her half-finished breakfast to the floor and jolted up on her feet - "Right now?"

"Right now! You think I'd wait until your parents wake up?"

They bursted out laughing.

* * *

><p>"Wow" - the girl marveled at how amazing the small shop looked to her. Of course, it wasn't huge and grand like her mansion, but it made a sweet, warm feeling to rise in her heart. It felt like <em>home<em> to her.

"Welcome to the little box I call 'home'. I'm just a tailor, so... It's not much, hope you don't mind." - it was Kalle's turn to be shy, his cheeks grew red and his hand unknowingly scratched the back of his head.

"Wow, you make all this?" - questioned Meri as she took a close inspection at a blue silk ball gown. He sure was amazing; it looked like the kind of dress that a queen would wear.

"Yeah, it's not finished." - Kalle kept on looking anywhere but Meri's eyes. In a flash, he'd already placed two cups on his table and was pouring a golden drink from a fine porcelain pot into both of them - "would you like to have a cup of tea?"

"I'd love to." - grabbing a wooden chair nearby and sat down facing Kalle, she took a small sip and sighed contentedly. As she was opening her mouth about to ask him something, Kalle disappeared behind a door in the back.

Meri was getting confused when the blue-haired male appeared again, a small stack of books sitting in his arms. She could only let out an "oh" in response.

"I have lots of books used to be my father's" - he sighed upon the mention of his own dear father - "he's... well... this was his favorite pastime..."_  
><em>

"_Was_?"

"You see..."

"Well, never mind!" - all of a sudden, Meri smiled widely - "What are those books about anyway?"

"These are novels and science books. But mostly science books."

"Kalle... I like reading too, but... well... I guess today we can... do something else!"

"Like what?" - the man gave her a questioning look.

"Like..." - unknowingly standing up, the turquoise pigtailed slipped towards a tall wooden closet standing against the wall. After making sure it was okay for her to open it, she was more than surprised to find clothes that looked very much like... _armors _to her.

"I received an order to make Viking costumes for a drama show the other day, but since then no one has come to pick it up. I have to keep them." - Kalle chuckled as he explained.

"Hey, I got an idea." - Meri's opal eyes lit up like fireflies - "How about..."

* * *

><p>"Ha, no man in the world can defeat the greatest Viking of all, let alone a <em>woman<em>! The Invincible Viking Queen huh? You're no match for me!" - shouted the man clad in Viking armor as he stood ever so proudly on a wooden chair.

"You may want to take that back immediately, because _you_ are absolutely no match for me! You call yourself the greatest Viking of all, but all I see of you is a useless old dog!" - rebutted the female wearing Viking armor over a blue satin dress playfully. She was also on her feet on a wooden chair inches away from the other.

"No way in Hell! If you want to get out of here alive, hand me all your food and..."

"You're talking too much..." - muttering in a breathy voice, the girl fiercely pulled the man closer, face barely any millimeter away from his, slender fingers teasing his lips. The man's face was burning hot when a low, decent tone of something knocking against wood yanked both of them out of their fantasy.

"Dang it." - grunted the blue-head as he took a look at the wall clock - it was time for Pauli to arrive - and stripped the costume off of his usual clothes. The aqua-haired followed suit and even helped him stuff all the clothing back into the closet as quickly as they could, with a few attempts of stopping them from falling out altogether. Closing the said closet, they started panicking as the knocks went on, louder, slower, more demanding.

"I'm sorry Meri, but I guess you have to go. Take this." - Kalle pulled out a pure white silk dress and nearly shoved it into her hands - "Just pretend to be a customer!"

"Wha..."

"Please?"

"Okay, but what am I going to do with the dress?"

"It's on the house. Now please go."

Saying nothing afterwards albeit still confused, she slipped to the door. Casually swinging it open, face clear of any traces of suspicious emotions, she disappeared, giving space for the tailor's young apprentice and two other people to appear.

"Good morning Pauli." - Kalle, now sitting at his table, started with a monotone voice - "good morning Mom" - then switched to a slightly confused one - "and good morning... er..." - and finally an utterly shocked one accompanied by a wide gaping mouth.

"This is Margareta, my aunt." - said the white-haired teen. The mentioned brunette smiled lightly and muttered a quiet "hi" - "Your mother said she and Aunt Reta needed to see you because of a very important reason."

A very important reason. Kalle already clearly knew what it was. There was only _one _reason why his mother would visit him out of the blue like that.

He buried his face into his crossed arms.

**(end of part 7)**

**_Muisti:_ memory, _uteliaisuus:_ curiosity**

**CAST:**

_KAIKO_ as **Kalle's mother**

_MEIKO_ as **Margareta **(Reta)


	8. VIII

"I've already told you Mom, I love you and I _always_ appreciate everything you've done for me. But you have to let me decide my own life. I'm twenty-five now. I..."

"Have I asked too much of you? Have I _ever_ asked too much of you? All I need is my son thinking of me, this worn-out woman! It's simple, just marry Margareta. Nothing more. No diamond rings. No majestic mansions. I'm begging you, please..."

"Listen Mom, it's not that I'm ungrateful to you, but I've told you this a million times. Every time you take home a strange woman whom I know absolutely nothing about and say "this is your wife", I always tell you _not to stick your nose into my love life! _Miss Frysker here, I'm sorry if I offended her, but I don't care if she's beautiful! I don't care if she's kind! I don't care if she's the typical "perfect wife"! I don't care if her father is a successful and rich Norwegian businessman! I don't care if she's Pauli's aunt! I just don't care! I don't love her, so I won't marry her. Simple!"

"You despicable little brat!" - growled the woman as he saw a fist shooting his way; luckily Margareta, who'd been quietly forcing her way through the conversation, was quick enough to push her back into her seat before someone got hurt. Kalle wasn't in the mood of backing down, but Pauli had already stopped him with a cup of hot coffee in front of his face before it was too late.

"Just look at this! I've trudged all the way from that goddamned Helsinki and he doesn't even give me a cup of hot coffee! What a great son he is, right Frysker?"

Margareta had never heard the woman addressing her by her last name, and she knew why then she did. Her family was one of the most renowned and respected ones in Norway and in the whole Scandinavia. Still, her head faced the floor on a frozen neck, her face and lips turned into dried cement.

"In your last mail, you said the doctor told you to stay away from coffee" - replied Kalle coldly.

"**TURPA KIINI**!" - screamed his mother again; Pauli swore he heard something like windows shaking along with the crazy eardrum piercing sound she just made - "... Alright, alright. Well I guess I _was_ too harsh on you..."

Kalle was about to heave a sigh of relief...

"But I'll come back tomorrow for the answer. You only have two choices. _Kyllä,_ congratulations, you're the happiest man on Earth, Miss Frysker (Margareta had to try not to facepalm) is the luckiest girl on Earth and I'm the most joyful mother on Earth. _Ei,_ well I guess I do feel sorry for you, but I guess I can't help it, because I heard a woman named Lena wants to buy this place to start another bakery..."

"No. You. Wouldn't. This is. My. Shop."- Kalle blubbered - he couldn't believe what his mother dared to say.

"Yes. I. Would. I'm your mother, of course I can sell it! And don't worry, once I've done that, you're not gonna be a homeless young man, I promise, because you're coming with me to my little apartment in Helsinki."

_Helsinki._

Did he just hear that?

No, more like _Hell-sinki._

The last thing he saw with his deep blue eyes was a cold, almost assaulting glare from the brunette - his fiancée - before both women disappeared behind the door and he flopped down on his table, unconscious.

But not before he screamed at the top of his lungs: "**PerkeleEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE**!"

* * *

><p>Cruel. Cruel. Too cruel. How could this happen to me?<p>

What have I done?

Is searching for love and freedom a sin?

Look at me, a rich, learned, _pathetic_ lady, locked up in this dark place with no one next to me. Even father and mother don't want to see me anymore. I've always longed to be in this room alone before... But not in this way... The door and the window behind me are all locked.

But what actually hurts me is that neither Kalle nor Lumi is going to rescue me. Ever.

On my way of being "escorted" back home by the guards and servants - they saw my half-eaten Finnish bread on the floor of my bedroom and eventually found me as I was leaving Kalle's shop. Mother and father _always_ recruit smart people - I heard people talking about a "pink-haired Swedish girl" who'd just gotten married and fled from the country. Forever.

How could you do this to me, Ruotsalainen? HOW COULD YOU?!

Well I guess that's it. Can't do anything about it. Have to put an end to this. I think I saw a knife on the floor...

... Näkemiin Suomi.

* * *

><p><strong>(end of part 8)<strong>


	9. IX

"What? What do you say?"

"This is serious... no, this is _very_ serious. Forget Miss Nikula's ballgown. Kalle, we have to go now."

"Look Pauli, just calm down and tell me what happened! Why do I have to go to the hospital now?"

"No, I will NOT calm down or tell you why. You HAVE to seek it for yourself. Don't think you can tell me to do whatever you want because I'm your apprentice. I'm very, very ANGRY at you."

The blue-haired man was more than shocked. The normally calm and collected silver head young man had never even furrowed an eyebrow at the older, let alone get _angry_ at him. This must mean that there was something awaiting him at the hospital, or Pauli was missing the city of Jyväskylä where he came from.

"I see..." - Kalle grabbed the shorter male's shoulder - "you really do seem exhausted. I think you should take a break in the next five days. I suppose you want to go back to your hometown to visit your mother. I'll pay for your train trip. There's a train to Jyväskylä 10 AM tomorrow..."

Kalle was brutally cut off by the young silver head yanking him out of the door and dragging him all the way through snowy streets; without the snow there, Kalle could have sworn the heels of his shoes would have either been grated into fine dust or ablazed and left a trail of fire behind his feet. But even when that was _not_ happening, the blueberry head was feared to death and would not stop shouting: "Seis! Apua! Soittakaa poliisille! AAAAAAAAAaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaa!"

* * *

><p>"Here he is. The fricking culprit is here. Now you can do whatever you want to this bastard, I won't stop you; in fact I'd be more than pleased to see his head chopped off" - spitting bad words out of his mouth like a violent drunkard, the short man with white hair reaching his shoulders nearly shoved his teacher face-down on the ceramic floor before grabbing a seat on a stool nearby. Sweat streaming down his face and palm, Kalle gulped audibly as he took the scene in front of him into his eyes: a tall, slender woman with a rather attractive face and long silky golden hair wearing a white lab coat; two other women, one slightly taller than the other with chestnut eyes and chocolate hair, the other with chin-length vivid blond hair, sapphire eyes, sporting a white bow atop her head and dressed in a traditional Finnish dress with a carefully embroidered apron, as noticed by the blue-haired tailor, that reached all the way down to the heels of her worn-out old shoes; all three of them situated on three stools facing him with different gazes. But the thing that caught his attention and also shocked him the most had to be a blonde man lying flat on the bed with his chest going up and down violently to every heavy heaving sound and a rebreather attached securely to his face, covering his nose and mouth, leaving only his sky blue eyes staring weakly at Kalle.<p>

He was so surprised that he just literally froze there, like a statue.

"No. Way." - he finally uttered.

"Yes. Way!" - growled the short blonde in the folk costume as she shot up from her seat and charged at the blue-head, launching her palm at his face, making a loud slap. Hurt and confused, Kalle had no option but listen to what she had to say - "you goddamn cunt! You killed my brother and now you're even looking as if you'd never done anything! Well, since you ****ing killed Lennart, I'll kill you and send you back to Hell, where you belong!" - that being said, the woman, whom Kalle had long recognized as Lydia, Lennart's poor younger sister, swiftly drew out a knife from the pocket hung to the waist of her dress and pointed it at Kalle with a trembling hand and teary eyes - "**PAINU HELVETTIN**!"

"Miss, please calm down" - said the tall blonde woman in a lab coat with her naturally deep voice as she reached out and stopped Lydia in her track before it was too late - "Sir, I believe he is your cousin, Lennart. His lungs... I can't do anything about them. I'm really, really sorry, but... He told me that the other day when he wanted to sleep over at your house, you locked him out, making him have to sleep outside on the pavement under the snow."

That's how it was. Kalle, who had come to understand everything, approached his cousin's bed, truly devastated.

"Wh... What have I done?!" - he began sobbing - "I shouldn't have locked you out... I'm sorry... It's all my fault... What am I going to do when you... you... die?"

"The door... was locked... from the outside... Where... had you been... that night?"

Kalle was surprised to find his cousin not even paying attention to his apology. Still, he replied: "I was annoyed... by you... so I wanted to go outside for a while..."

"And?"

"And I met a girl..."

"Ha! I... know... it!" - Lennart tried to smile triumphantly under his rebreather - "this... woman... told me... everything!" - he wanted to point at the brunette, but all the cords connected to his fingers made him only able to stick his chin at her direction.

"M... Miss Frysker?" - Kalle's eyes widened when Margareta's remained calm and soulless.

...

* * *

><p><em>"Hello, Aunt Reta. Nice to see you here" - said the young silver head politely.<em>

_"Hi there, Pauli! Where are you going?"_

_"To the hospital. Kalle's mother told me earlier today that his cousin has caught a pretty serious disease"_

_"Did you just say_ Kalle's_ cousin? The Kalle who's my fiancé?"_

_"That is undoubtedly true"_

_The brunette's eyes flashed a hint of sadness and disappointment._

_"You know, Pauli... I feel very, very sorry for him" - she continued to talk as the two made their way to Lennart's room - "I love him, but he doesn't love me back. The woman of his dreams is the one with beautiful turquoise hair, a lot prettier than me, a lot more daring than me, a lot more unfortunate than me, a lot better than me"_

_Instantly, Pauli felt a stroke of realization. The woman with turquoise hair... Had he seen her before, leaving Kalle's shop?_

_It must be her._

_"Hello Pauli" - a hoarse, weak voice pulled the silver head back to Earth - "and?"_

_"Margareta Frysker, his aunt"_

_"You two... seemed to be... carried away... I heard everything... you... were talking... about... Kalle... well, he's... killed me... Bring him here... I have... to... tell him... something..."_

_"I'll go get him right away" - said Pauli - "by the way, Aunt Reta, one question though, how did you know that?"_

_..._

* * *

><p>"You see, I have this strange power in my genes. Just by one glance at someone's eyes, I know who he's in love with and whether that person loves him back or not" - the brunette pinned her eyes to her knees as she explained in her monotone voice - "don't deny it. The woman leaving your shop the other day clearly wasn't a customer"<p>

Kalle looked as if he was about to have a heart attack. _Just what the hell in Savonia is happening?!_

"You've... always been... a coward... Kalle..." - smiled the blonde, struggling - "I was... more than surprised... to find out... that... you've found... your love... on your own... After all... cousin... I'm very _proud..._ because you locked me out... Now... make me proud again..."

Kalle's heart felt as if it'd been ripped into pieces at the last words that slipped out of Lennart's lips before he went off to the Netherworld: "Are you... go...ing to... go... back... being... a... coward... again?..."

Even a woman with a heart harder than steel and colder than a Scandinavian winter like Lydia, who was then still squeezing her knife in her numb and scratched hand, couldn't hold back her tears as she took in the sight of her own brother's eyes closing, never to be opened again and her cousin crying, screaming, nearly ripping his hair off next to his bed.

Clang.

Dropping the knife to the ceramic floor, resulting in a clear metallic noise, the blonde woman knelt down desperately, drops after drops of tears raced down her face, soaking her carefully embroidered apron.

"Look, crying will not bring back life to your cousin. Who's dead, is dead" - Margareta suddenly became very determined, as seen when she grabbed the blue head's shoulder firmly and sported an unusual sparkle to her eyes - "the best thing to do right now is to fulfill his last wish. Go find your girl and promise her your eternal love. I love you and I'll always do, Kalle, so that's why I'll let you go and be happy with your choice"

With no words being said, Kalle yanked the brunette's hand away from his arm and, like an arrow, shot through the door, through the front gate and disappeared.

* * *

><p><strong>(end of part 9)<strong>

**_The thing Kalle yells_ mean: "Stop! Help! Call the police!"; _what Lydia shouts_ mean: "Go to Hell!"**

**CAST:**

_Lily_ as** the doctor**


	10. X

Soon enough, Kalle found himself sprinting through snow-covered streets, his eyes sore from all the needles the freezing air speared at his face. They hurt so bad he wished he could close them, but he knew he had to keep them peeled as he hoped for just a little glimpse of the majestic mansion in which his love lived.

_Fulfill his wish..._

"Dammit!" - cursing to himself, he continued, though difficultly, ignoring all the stares directed at him and the fact that he was lost in a desperate attempt to power his practically frozen legs and nearly dying hope.

Perhaps his mother was right. He shouldn't have fallen in love with Meri in the first place. He should have listened to her and marry Margareta. He would have had a lovable wife ("lovable" was an underestimation; Kalle had mentally sworn if he hadn't already been in love with another girl, he would have fallen for the half Norwegian woman's boobs straight away), a nice family and a peaceful life.

Maybe he should go back and propose to her...

_Fulfill his wish..._

"NEVER!" - he screamed so loudly that even people from Oulu could hear him. Swallowing a sore rising in his throat, followed by a misty, almost frosty sigh, he collected every bit left of his energy to move his paralyzed legs and run like a madman.

* * *

><p>The wind was so strong and brutally icy that Kalle sworn he could have been blinded. In the end, he could barely see anything but a complete blur of foggy white.<p>

But it wasn't long before a trace of wooden brown came into his view.

And soon after, a long stroke of turquoise.

"Me... Meri! Meri!" - his senses awakening only to find himself unable to reach the woman behind the locked worn-out window. But it wasn't the first thing he noticed - his love was sitting facing the window with her back, frozen on the floor, her now untied disheveled turquoise hair hanging down lifelessly.

Kalle began drowning in despair. It was like the Meri he saw wasn't Meri anymore, it was like the woman sitting there was just a _statue _of the Meri he knew. Soulless and inanimate. He had read stories about people dying so suddenly they didn't have time to fall down. She could have died when the Nordic winter gave her a disease that took away her life in a flash, or the Demon might have come and sucked her soul away from her body within a split second.

Kalle dearly hoped his eyes wasn't so sore so that he could cry; now that Meri died, her body behind that window could dissolve minutes later, leaving him dying an even more painful death.

But soon, the despair he was buried in disappeared, giving space for utter _amazement_. The body of Meri had mysteriously, _magically _disappeared, leaving him puzzled for a second...

Before his senses grew alert and warned him of a wooden stool shooting his way. Kalle managed to dodge the attack, but not the window as it bursted into glass pieces less than the size of pebbles mixed with strips of dark wood from the frame. The stool landed half a meter away from the frightened man, upside down.

"Go away" - he heard a hoarse female voice coming from inside the room, now that the barrier blocking sounds from its inside to the outside was no more - "I hate you. I'm going to kill you. Leave."

Now that Kalle dearly wished the words he heard were in anything but Finnish. Or Swedish. He was rather relieved at the thought that maybe the owner of the broken voice was no one else but Meri's mother, since the aqua-haired woman herself having such a voice was unimaginably impossible. But what was he thinking?

"Me... Meri?" - he blubbered at the lifeless statue of his love now on her feet and cutting holes in his head with her surprisingly lively aqua eyes.

**(end of part 10)**


End file.
